Class Comparison

Class Comparison Table

These are GENERAL notes for the classes. Some Sub-Classes' characteristics run counter to the generalities of their class. There are melee styles with AoE skills, there are magic users with melee attacks, etc. Generally every class/sub-class have some version of every skill type and attack style, which (depending on general effectiveness, enemy combatant, or player style) may or may not be used in any given situation.

See Sub Class Comparison for more details.

• Orientation
  • Melee means uses weapons
  • Magic means uses MP
  • Range means use of long-range attacks.

Name	Orientation	Play Style	Range	Defense	Speed	Notes	Popularity
Slayer	Melee	Balanced melee class	Medium	Good	Fast	Easy to use, difficult to master. Has a difficult time starting out due to lack of skills, but becomes very proficient at PvE and PvP. Skills are straightforward and highly accessible. Skills tend to have the dark/shadow elemental attribute.	Very common
Fighter	Melee	High speed movement with powerful melee skills	Short	Good	Fastest	Harder than the Slayer due to shorter reach and lack of variety in skills, but very satisfying damage. Has a difficult time starting out until the first grab skill is learned. Skills tend to have the light elemental attribute.	Common
Gunner	Ranged	Versatile ranged attacker	Long	Average	Fast	Very easy to use. Has an extremely easy start by keeping enemies away with ranged attacks. Excels in a keep-away game, and can harass effectively with low risk. Can temporarily enchant bullets with an element.	Very common
Mage	Melee/Magic	Tricky melee attacks backed by magic skills	Medium/Long	Poor	Average	Low HP and defense makes the Mage the most difficult to play and start out with. As more skills become accessible, the Mage's damage output and survivability will start to increase rapidly.	Uncommon
Priest	Melee	Slow moving tank with the strongest attack power	Short/Medium	Great	Slow	Easy to use, difficult to avoid getting damaged. Has an average difficulty starting out. Despite the name of Priest, this is not the traditional healer class. While the Priest can heal, it isn't very effective and has heavy limitations. Instead, the Priest excels in melee combat. Skills tend to grant super armor, protecting the Priest from interruptions. This makes melee combat extremely one-sided; the Priest must spend most of his time chasing players in PvP.	Uncommon
Musician	Ranged/Magic	Attacks along the x-axis; powerful burst attacks	All	Mediocre, but can be temporarily increased	Fast	Can apply various elemental attributes, can attack from long or short range, can be a Magic or Ranged attacker, can handle mobs extremely well. Even random SP spending doesn't completely destroy this class's usefulness, as is the case with most other classes, due to the similar nature of many skills.	N/A

Subclass Comparison Table

• Range- usual range of attacks
  • Short- Shortest range
  • Medium- Can be roughly two to three body lengths away
  • Long- Farthest range
• Source- source of damage, usually referring to the most often used attack
  • Physical- uses weapons to attack; deals physical damage
  • Magical- uses magic skills to attack; deals magical damage
  • Hybrid- uses both weapons and magic skills to attack
• Skill type- the type of skills the subclass specializes in
  • Power- powerful offensive skills
  • Speed- fast/combo/cancellable skills
  • Buff- skills to either improve the character or to weaken the opponent.
  • Nuke- high powered ranged attacks
  • Summoner- Summons allies to aid directly in contributing attacks
• Difficulty- Minimum level of initial skill required to play the character
  • Easy- Anyone with any level of experience can play this character to good effect
  • Average- Some experience with gaming would be helpful, some learning curve
  • Hard- Should have some experience with gaming and 2D scrollers, there will be a learning curve

Name	Class	Range	Source	Skill type	Difficulty	Notes
Blade Master	Slayer	Medium	Physical	Speed	Easy	The Blade Master expands on the basic skills and can now cancel attacks into them, allowing the Blade Master to improvise combos fluidly and easily. In PvE, the Blade Master enjoys easy infinite combo setups (while MP lasts). In PvP, they have well-rounded abilities and are able to quickly take down a player with their sheer DPS from proper combos. The Blade Master is the undisputed glass cannon of the Slayer subclasses.
Soul Bender	Slayer	Medium/Long	Hybrid	Buff	Hard	The Soul Bender wears cloth armor, so he takes more damage when attacked. However, he can easily mitigate it with Afterimage of Keiga and carefully trap his opponent with well placed spirits to inflict status ailments. With tools such as Ghost Step to safely avoid all damage and get the first strike, the Soul Bender specializes in a powerful keep-away to overcome his opponent.
Berserker	Slayer	Medium	Physical	Buff	Average	The Berserker uses his own HP to activate skills instead of MP, but gains incredible survivability in exchange. At low HP, he becomes more difficult to finish off thanks to increasing parameters and the ability to heal himself. The Berserker has gained the nickname "cockroach" by the Korean DnF community.
Asura	Slayer	Medium/Long	Magical	Nuke	Average	The magic-user of the Slayers and the slowest of the four. The Asura has the highest physical defense due to Plate Armor Mastery, and uses primarily ranged projectiles. His skills have high burst damage, making the Asura great for crowd control and boss killing, but the slow movement speed gives him a difficult time catching other players in PvP. The Asura is recommended for players who enjoy zoning with projectiles and creating fireball traps.
Nen Master	Fighter	Medium/Long	Magical	Buff	Easy	The magic user of the Fighters. She can harass effectively with projectiles, and learns many defensive skills to avoid damage. Most notably, Floating Nen Flowers allows an awakened Nen Master to passively nullify any attack once, after which it reactivates when a set period of time has passed by. The Nen Master sacrifices offensive power for powerful defense and escape tools to play an effective keep-away game, and can handle her own in close combat with her buffs.
Striker	Fighter	Short	Physical	Power	Average	The fastest movement speed combined with the highest burst damage in the game. Strikers aim to land a powerful combo string rather than individual hits, though trading hits is still advantageous for the Striker. Landing a combo is usually achieved by using a temporary Super Armor buff to help close in on an opponent. While the short reach makes it difficult to land a combo, the Striker's naturally high movement speed helps to compensate for it. The Striker is a great choice for players favoring "bulldog" or "rush down" tactics (the best defense is the best offense mindset) as they are able to chase enemies unchecked whenever the Super Armor buff is active.
Brawler	Fighter	Medium	Physical	Buff	Average	Specializes in afflicting status conditions (such as bleeding, poison, stun, and immobility) on opponents. The Brawler has a lot of tools to deal with a variety of situations. Most notably, they can mount downed opponents for extra attacks. In addition, Brawlers deal increasing bonus damage as opponents are also afflicted with increasing amounts of status conditions. They have one of the best tools in the game in the form of Heaven's Net, which allows them to pull and immobilize enemies from across the screen for a free combo. Players who like utility will also enjoy the Brawler's harassing ability.
Grappler	Fighter	Short	Physical	Power	Hard	Specializes in grabs/throws and can even grab ungrabbable enemies. The Grappler can chain throws together to create a combo, and is very dangerous in "okizeme" (the downed opponent cannot stand up safely). The Grappler enjoys immense popularity in the Korean DnF community as the glass cannon of the Fighter subclasses.
Ranger	Gunner	Any Range	Physical	Speed	Easy	Can fight at any range, and is especially dangerous at melee range. The Ranger specializes in juggling opponents in the air. The difficulty listed is rather deceptive. While the Ranger class itself is easy to play, dealing damage is very difficult. If one is adept at juggling, one can bring out the Ranger's strength to deal massive amounts of damage in a single juggle. However, if one cannot perform juggles, one will find the damage output to be decisively behind other Gunner classes.
Launcher	Gunner	Long	Physical	Nuke	Easy	The Launcher is a huge threat even from off-screen. His skills are mostly nukes, and can quickly dispatch an opponent with successful hits. While skill usage is very MP intensive, it can also deal generous amounts of damage when chained together in a single combo.
Mechanic	Gunner	Long	Magical	Summoner	Average	The Mechanic is different from the Summoner in that his summons make a bee-line towards enemies and can fill the screen with projectiles, effectively giving the Mechanic the title of "the PvP Summoner". Despite that title, the Mechanic excels in PvE as well (particularly the Female Mechanic since she can rotate between G1-Corona and G2-Rolling Thunder indefinitely). Since Mechanics wear Cloth Armor, they play keep-away exclusively and put pressure on opponents from afar.
Spitfire	Gunner	Middle	Hybrid	Nuke	Easy	The Spitfire is very easy to play, and is known as a "cheesy" class in that knockdowns allow him to fire a salvo of enchanted bullets for extremely high damage. He can zone effectively with grenades, possesses a great Z-axis attack with Crossmore, and can lay mines to stay in control of the field.
Elementalist	Mage	Long	Magical	Nuke	Hard	The Elementalist is a powerful nuking class and is the bane of all Exorcists in PvP. She can play an effective keep-away game with her spells, and flood the field with projectiles. In PvE, the Elementalist can quickly destroy large packs of monsters with AoE nukes. With careful spell placement, the player can put immense pressure on both players and monsters while remaining safe.
Summoner	Mage	Long	Magical	Summoner	Easy	The Summoner suffers from poor minion AI, but still enjoys flooding the screen with her minions. In PvE, she is able to solo while avoiding all damage, but she solos very slowly due to how attacking with summons work (target must be set using a skill). As a result, most players recommend going Mechanic for any sort of summon play. Still, there are Summoners who enjoy mild success in PvP since they have different minion attack patterns that players are unable to deal with. Interestingly, Summoners can lag out some party members when they create enough summons (like Necromancers in Diablo 2)!
Witch	Mage	Medium	Hybrid	Speed	Average/Hard	Several skills are based on chance, with a possibility of failure, success, and sleeper success. A witch uses weapon buffs and close-range attacks to perform damaging juggle combos, while using AoE skills to trap enemies. They are able to air-dash due to unique movement skills related to the broom, making them the most mobile of the Mage subclasses.
Battle Mage	Mage	Medium	Hybrid	Speed	Hard	The top tier PvP class in Korea, the Battle Mage enjoys unrivaled attack and movement speed (via Chaser buff) at high levels of play. They specialize in combos much like the Ranger, but are not limited to just air juggling. They use Chasers, which are generated automatically upon landing skills and are manually launched at enemies to inflict AoE damage, stun effects, negative attributes, and most importantly, to continue combos. The Battle Mage is equipped with strong survivability as well with maxed Mana Shield. Players who are adept at combos and juggling will find the Battle Mage to be very rewarding.
Crusader	Priest	Short	Magical	Buff	Easy	The support class of DFO, with skills that heal, protect, and buff. Offensive melee attacks tend to be short ranged. Careful skill allocation is needed due to multiple available builds, and healing skills can be cast only a certain number of times in dungeons. Depending on the number of party members, MP usage can be light to very heavy. This is also the most uncommon class played due to its niche role. PvP Crusaders can be found online, but are a rarity due to the bigger advantages of PvPing as other classes.
Monk	Priest	Short	Physical	Speed	Average	Will Driver allows the Monk to plant his weapon in the ground to use a special boxing style move set, sacrificing staying power for incredible speed and powerful burst damage. The Monk uses high speed dashing and dodging followed by a combo to take down enemies. Fast reflexes and quick thinking is essential to mastering this class. The Monk is recommended for players excelling in "footsies" (dancing in and out of opponent's attack range) as they are able to punish whiffs (missed attacks) with deadly precision.
Exorcist	Priest	Short/Medium	Hybrid	Power	Average	One of the most versatile subclasses in the game, both skill types (physical and magical) are well represented with either high damage potential or utility. Very careful skill planning is necessary as there are many build options, such as physical-based (focus on raw damage) or magical-based (focus on AoE and zoning), or hybrid (focus on PvP utility). Physical exorcists are famous for being able to kill other players in a single combo (though at great expense since they are unable to deal with keep-away play styles). They also tend to spend the entire match trying to catch the other player. It is notable that Physical Exorcists almost never win against Elementalists, while hybrid builds allow the Exorcist a chance to trap them with spells of his own.
Rock Star	Musician	Short	Hybrid	Power	Intermediate	Very fast, very strong smashing attacks that have a chance to stun. Also has a few useful magic skills.
Muse	Musician	Middle	Magical	Buff	Intermediate	The magic user of the Musicians. Depends on movement speed for survival.
Minstrel	Musician	Middle	Hybrid	Nuke, Buff	Intermediate	Utilizes status conditions, such as confuse, stun, blind, and freeze. Good for zoning.
Bard	Musician	Long	Magical	Summoner	Beginner	Very MP intensive. Mostly mobile summons, with skills to buff summons or banish them to provide a temporary elemental weapon buff. Not reliant on the summons' AI.